


Imperfect Completion

by peppermintquartz



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Apocalypse
Genre: Angst, Cherik - Freeform, Friendship/Love, M/M, bits and pieces, other minor characters from XM:A, spoilers for those who haven't watched the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6931546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintquartz/pseuds/peppermintquartz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik follows Charles back home, for a little while.<br/>Some snippets strung together post-XM:Apocalypse.<br/>Spoilers apply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfect Completion

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously. Spoilers. If you've not watched it and you don't like to be spoiled, don't read this.

The ride home to Westchester was an uneasy one, to say the least.

Charles had fallen into a deep, restorative sleep once they were safely on the plane that MacTaggert demanded and got. The agents on the plane had initially wanted to put Erik in custody before allowing him on the plane, but desisted when Erik mutely gestured to the destruction around them. She got into the cockpit, and from what Erik could hear she had given a concise and edited interpretation of the events that had happened in Cairo.

The three kids Jean, Kurt, and Scott were curled up in their seats, still too keyed up to rest. They chattered about inconsequentialities. Scott kept picking at the armrest. 

Ororo sat off to the side by herself, her arms wrapped about her abdomen. Everyone was deliberately not asking why she was coming to Westchester. Every now and again she flicked a glance at Raven sitting stiffly in the seat across the aisle, staring out the window at the clouds. 

Other than Charles, Peter had also been sedated for Hank to treat the break in his arm and leg. The young man had been very brave. For some reason, Erik found that endearing, and that troubled him. He supposed he liked the cheeky kid. 

As for Erik himself, he stayed right next to Charles, hand in hand. The agents were careful to surround him, and their weapons were non-metal, but Erik would not move from Charles’ side even if ten thousand nuclear bombs were pointed at him.

The touch centered Erik. He had missed this -- Charles’ optimism and certainty in the good in people, Charles’ determination to educate and elevate,  _ Charles. _

The telepath seemed small and frail in the narrow bed, and Erik privately grieved the loss of Charles’ luscious brown hair. How often had Erik buried his face in his wife’s tresses and thought of the man he left behind? How often had he wanted to call out to Charles, let him know about Erik’s life in the woods?

_ Charles would have loved Nina, _ the thought whispered, soft and insidiously tender. Erik clutched Charles’ hand, the pang stabbing deep into his soul. The tears fell, silently and hard, and if the agents and the kids saw it, they pretended not to.

In Erik’s hand, Charles’ fingers twitched. And then a gentle voice no louder than the wind murmured, ‘ _ I’ve loved her through your memories of her, Erik. We have loved her together.’ _

_ You’re supposed to be sleeping, _ Erik let the thought sit at the forefront of his mind.

Charles imagined a smile.  _ ‘I was. But you needed me. I can rest in your mind too, old friend. If you’d let me.’ _

The telepath’s intention was clear. Erik held his breath and then shut his eyes, leaning his forehead against Charles’ limp hand in his own. He had never invited his friend into his head; he had too many horrors and pain locked inside.  _ Come into me, Charles. _

 

xoxox

 

“This is beautiful,” said Charles, hand in hand with Erik in the little home in the woods. In their minds, Charles was wholesome and healthy, standing on his feet, his hair rich and tousled in a way that makes Erik’s heart thump. “Serene and calm. I would have loved living here.”

The trees were rustling with life, and -- Erik suddenly covered his mouth with his free hand, to stifle the sob that rose unbidden -- Nina, laughing, feeding the wild deer that so trusted her.

“Nina.” When Charles said her name, Erik trembled. The memory shook and Charles leaned into his side; the little scene remained undisturbed. “She is beautiful.”

“The most... She’s the most beautiful person in the world,” Erik managed to say. This was his head, there was no place more secure than this; no one but Charles would be allowed this  _ ever again _ . The words were in his head and his heart. He would never have been able to utter them aloud. “I had to help deliver her. This perfect person came into the world and I was the first person to  _ see _ her, I carried her in my hands, and for once...” Words that tumbled clumsily out of his mouth got stuck in his throat. “I had blood on my hands that came from love, Charles, she was squirming and bloody and wailing and I was -- Charles, she was  _ my world _ .”

Erik didn’t know when he had fallen to his knees and begun weeping, but Charles cradled his head and held him as he broke. When Erik lifted his head to look around, he was surprised that they were no longer at the home he had lost, but in Charles’ study. 

And Charles had tears in his brilliantly blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Charles. “I thought you’d prefer not to taint that memory with sorrow and grief. It was too lovely.”

Erik smiled shakily, and brushed his hand over Charles’ face. He would ask his old friend to seal the forest and the memory away, so Nina would be playing with her friends forever and ever. For now, he and Charles embraced each other, and rested.

 

xoxox

 

The mansion had to be rebuilt, but between Erik and Jean, the task was done very quickly.

Alex’s funeral was held that same week, in the grounds of the school that had taught him to use his powers. Charles and Hank called him a hero and a friend. Scott had cried till he lost his voice. Sean came back to the school and poured a bottle of whiskey over the grave before he left, saying very little to everyone else; he and Alex had been drinking buddies after Cuba and had fought side by side in Vietnam. 

The redhead did stay for one evening, perched on top of the roof. Charles heard Sean crying and let his former student roll out memory after memory of the war, and in each one Sean and Alex had saved each other.

Humbled, Charles counted himself lucky to still have Erik with him. Even if they were to be adversaries again, Charles could never kill Erik, and he had an iron-clad certainty that Erik could not kill Charles either.

 

xoxox

 

Erik stayed in the mansion longer than he had wanted, but he needed to monitor the spin the media placed on his involvement. He had not intended to put Charles and the kids at risk, but Raven had rolled her eyes and said, “Do you think we would not come looking for you if you were in trouble?”

“I thought you’d given up on me,” Erik had replied.

“Even if I had, my brother wouldn’t.” Raven sighed and flopped back in her seat. “Sometimes I wish Cuba never happened.”

It was only the same wish Erik had made hundreds of times when he was locked in the tiny cell, so he said nothing.

 

xoxox

Charles knew Erik had passed the initial stages of grief when he began teasing Charles about his newly-bald pate. The kids had avoided even  _ thinking _ about it, Raven avoided being in the same room as Charles -- that hurt, a lot -- and Hank only wondered if the process was irreversible and saw it as a science puzzle. 

But one morning, before any of the students were up, Erik passed Charles a mug of tea and kissed him on the top of his head, saying, “I guess you ought to change the school’s name to the Egg-savior School for Gifted Youngsters.”

It was a terrible, lousy pun, and it made Charles laugh so hard he got stitches.

 

xoxox

 

They were not demonstrative in front of the kids. Behind closed doors, in the study, they played chess and debated Goethe and Hemingway and T.S. Eliot. Erik teased Charles about needing sunscreen for his head at the dinner table sometimes and Charles would retort with a huge smile in a way that baffled the kids. 

But when the house was quiet and they were in bed, Erik would hold his old friend close and place feathery kisses all over Charles’ head, pressing flickering thoughts about how much he loved Charles into the telepath’s mind. 

They made love in the secret places in their heads, where Charles could feel everything, and if Erik woke up hard and needy in the morning, Charles would use his hands or let Erik use his mouth. This was temporary, they both knew; Erik was not going to stay and teach and care for the children as his own, because again and again and again his family was ripped from him and he could not bear it if that happened to Charles too. Erik needed to fight. That was his nature, and there had been too much for him not to continue fighting.

Rage would always be the dominant force in Erik’s nature, and Charles -- Charles was his serenity. 

Soon, Charles knew, Erik would leave, and all they would have between them would be the memories: of their chess games and friendly teasing, of them discussing schematics of the Danger Room and the new Cerebro; of them naked in a warm meadow where the world didn’t exist outside of that space, of them coupling beside the National Mall, of slick skin and pressure in the backseat of an impossibly large limousine; of Erik waking up needing to have Charles’ hands and mouth on him, to greedily hoard all of these liberties before their impending separation.

Charles knew Erik believed himself to be cursed. He could erase that belief, but that would cross a line Charles promised himself never to cross with his old friend. They loved each other and were in love with each other; they were nemeses and friends and lovers and brothers, and everything in the spaces that those relationships did not cover.

They were bookends of the same soul. 


End file.
